Aquellos que nos vieron mientras el monstruo se afilaba los colmillos
(Those who saw us while the monsters were sharpening their fangs). Among the many horrible incidents and genocides that populate Chilean history and politics, one of the most recent is, without a doubt, the violent coup d'etat that put Augusto Pinochet in power and caused the death, disappearance, exile, and torture of thousands of Chileans only for think differently.

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Thanks to the efforts of many, including families of missing and murdered Chileans, international organizations pushing for the declassification of state documents, and particularly the 40-year work of American historian Peter Kornbluh, we learned of the diabolic involvement of the United States former President Richard Nixon, and his Security Advisor, Nobel Peace Prize, Henry Kissinger.

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Taking from the book "Pinochet Declassified: The secret U.S. files on Chile (From the public and the private) about a country in confusion" published in 2023 today, we slowly learn about this infamous conspiracy that destroyed the democracy in Chile and fractured the country so deep that the ripples of this intervention are felt until today in a fractured and still deeply divided nation.

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"Days after the military coup in Chile, U.S. President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, congratulated each other. "In Eisenhower's time, we would have been treated as heroes," Kissinger remarked. The transcript of that conversation, which was kept hidden for decades, is one of more than 25,000 U.S. documents on Chile, declassified thanks to the work of more than 40 years by [...] Peter Kornbluh. Relying on secret archives of agencies such as the CIA, the State Department and the National Security Council, Kornbluh reconstructs [...] how the White House tried to prevent Salvador Allende's inauguration as President, thanks to the key role of Chilean businessman Agustín Edwards Eastman. And how support for the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet was promoted by Kissinger, the mastermind of the intervention in Chile. A support that continued even after the assassination attempt ordered by Pinochet that killed Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington in 1976. The documents also reveal how the White House began to distance itself from the dictator in 1986, when photographer Rodrigo Rojas [...] was burned alive by Chilean soldiers. U.S. support only broke with Pinochet on the eve of the 1988 referendum, when the general wanted to activate a bloody plan to disavow his defeat."

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Before and during those dark times, Quebecois had an eye on the new model Allende's platform implemented in Chile. A socialist model democratically elected that tried to transition Chilean politics from a Capitalist to a model of moderate Socialism, where the primary beneficiaries were workers and citizens of the low and middle classes. Many Quebecois did look at the Southern country to apply those models in Quebecois politics, which until today marks a huge difference between the province and the rest of Canada in developing policies directed to support and protect citizens. When Pinochet arrived in power, there were also Quebecois who called out first the Trudeau government, which quickly recognized the illegitimate military government in Chile. They also pushed to expedite the process of political asylum for exiles from Chile, giving them a new place to call home where they could somehow heal from the horrors experienced under Pinochet.

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At the filthy anniversary of that terrible September 11th of 1973, the l’Écomusée du fier monde in Montreal and artist Carolina Echeverria, commissioned this mural to retell the story of wonder, mutual inspiration, and links that changed the curse of history for many Chileans after that date.